MOSUL, Iraq — Iraq’s elite Golden Forces have captured 75 militants of the Islamic State, many of them carrying Russian identity papers, in Mosul’s Maamoun neighborhood where sporadic clashes continued until early Saturday morning. Military officials said the district was fully under government control after the area was cleared of remaining ISIS fighters.
Rudaw reporters in Mosul said more than 100 ISIS fighters were killed while confronting the army with suicide car bombs, according to military commanders.
At least a dozen of the captured militants were identified as recruited foreign fighters, many of them with Russian passports, the military said.
Commander of the Golden Forces Fazil Barwari told Rudaw the western districts of Tal Raian and Maamoun, which he described as “strategic pockets,” were both in army control by Saturday morning.
“The fight in western half of Mosul will be a different story than the eastern parts of the city because of its geographical location and the narrower makeup of the neighborhoods,” Barwari said.
On Friday morning, Iraq’s special forces announced they had seized the beleaguered Mosul airport and the adjacent al-Ghazlania military base after a week of intense clashes.
The Iraqi army and US military advisors are said to use the airbase to lead the advancement of Iraqi troops into more populated and likely more dangerous neighborhoods in western Mosul where close street clashes are expected to take place.
Mosul’s western half contains the city’s old districts with relatively narrower pathways and streets which will presumably make the movement of the army difficult, forcing the soldiers to move on without the protection of their armoured vehicles.
“The airport has a strategic location and in fact its recapture provides the Iraqi troops access to the entire city, especially to the western half,” military analyst Ahmed Shawqi Aldouri told Rudaw.
“We should expect that the fight will enter a very dangerous phase now as the ground troops need to engage in street and house-to-house battles while they move on to the Tal Rooman district and the sugar factory in the area,” Aldouri added.
According to Aldouri, nearly 80 percent of the airport has been leveled to the ground by the intense bombing raids of the past week.
“It is important that the infrastructure of the remaining areas in the city and the lives of the civilians trapped in these neighborhoods are protected while the ground troops close in,” he said.
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